Yes, I'm Still Here!!

It's no secret that I have personal pet peeves just like anybody else. Bad customer service is right at the top of the list, between sneaky co-worker's and people who forget how to use their turn signals. Dealing with anyone in a customer service capacity can be an arduous chore. But customer service reps and automated phone systems, are by far the most annoying. I dread having to call customer service for anything because 90% of the time my patience barely survives the ordeal. First of all, it always seems to take forever to get past the automated system, and despite having numerous options, there is rarely if ever one which adequately describes my issue. God forbid you press the wrong number. You'll be on hold for 10 minutes, and when you finally get to speak to a rep, they tell you that this is the wrong department and then put you on hold again. Then, when you finally get to speak to the right rep in the right department, you get some stranger that you don't even know who insists on calling you by your first name, as if they've known you your entire life. I didn't wait on the phone listening to Copa Cabana just to make a new friend. If you really want to be kind, kindly reverse the the fee that you should have never added on to my account in the first place. Every now and then, I get a cocky, arrogant, clueless, indifferent dim whit who reads from a script regardless of whether it applies to my particular problem or makes the slightest bit of sense. They do not try to help. They just try to sound helpful because the call is being recorded.
The only pleasure that I ever get from calling customer service is when I ask for a supervisor, and they put me on hold for what seems like forever. I think the plan is to "wait me out", in other words, they try to keep me on hold so long that I get frustrated, angry, and discouraged enough to hang up. I take this as a personal challenge, and have been known to stay on hold as long as a half an hour! The shock that I hear in the customer service reps voice when they say, "Hello", and I say, "Yes, I'm still here!", is priceless and almost worth the the time that I've spent waiting. But sadly, there are times when, even after all of that, this multi-billion dollar corporation still refuses to rectify the situation. So I am forced to show up at their satellite office, being 50% Black, 25% amazing, and 25% furious. For some reason this seems to always work, and all of the company policies that were articulated to me in detail the night before, don't seem to be nearly as relevant as they once were. I guess it's a lot easier to say no over the phone, and a lot harder to act cocky when someone can reach out and touch you.

PR